AirBlade

Share.

Check elsewhere for wallpaper, and check here for 18 cool new high-res screens of AirBlade.

By IGN Staff

New Media We've finally gotten a hold of the ECTS demo of Airblade in our offices and must say that the game is completely living up to and even exceeding most of our expectations. The only downer is that this demo is extremely limited and only includes one level from the Story Mode of the game in single player and a single two-player level. Since Smith is out on vacation, the trick duties have been left up to me (DaveZ) and as you'll be able to see in the videos we have for you today, that my skillz (TM) just don't do the game any justice. SCEA has yet to announce this one for release in the United States (they better bring it here, though, because it looks like it could be a triple-A title), but Sony Europe will release it in PAL territories in November.

Hands-on Impressions The main problem with Criterion Studios' TrickStyle, the early Dreamcast airboard racing game, was that it was, well, a racing game. It was great fun to just fool around in its skatepark areas, but when you had to hit the track and deal with the choppy framerate, cheap AI, and questionable design decisions (I'm sorry, but those rails were STUPID), things weren't quite so entertaining.

Criterion's taken the hint, it seems, because Airblade, its new PS2 title due to be published by Sony Europe in the fall, throws racing completely out the window. Instead, you hoverboard your way through wide-open areas, completing waypoint-based stunt goals or just plotting to bust as many tricks as you can. It's very much like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, but with the twists thrown in by your hovering transport, and as yet much more open, expansive areas (at least in comparison to the E3 Hawk 3 demo).

Floating about on your board, you have three main actions: grab, trick, and grind. These are mapped to the top three face buttons. The trick button performs body tricks, smoothly-animated moves like flips and handstands (the sci-fi setting removes many of the constraints imposed on a more realistic games, resulting in some way over-the-top maneuvers). Grind lets you slide along rails and edges. Grab is a multipurpose button, though -- most times it just does grab tricks, but if you do it near a horizontal or vertical pole, you can swing around it like a gymnast and then let go to launch yourself through the air.

That plays into several of the level goals -- Airblade includes a story mode where you play two oppressed boarders trying to escape some sort of evil corporate thingummy (it's called GPC, whatever that means). In one story level shown, you have to evade surveillance, which means smashing cameras by swinging on their mounting poles and pulling tricks through "Wanted" billboards. Another demands that you hop up to the high perches where a series of snipers are ensconced.

It's a good deal more fun as yet to just wander around the levels, though. There are open plazas full of grindable edges and rails, bridges to ride up and over, buildings ringed with ledges, dead-ends full of quarterpipes, and strong line design throughout. Combos are easy to pull off, and the transitional animations for both riders and boards make them look very good, because each trick fades nicely into the next one. Link together lots of tricks and, in addition to the cool animations and big point scores, you fill up an SSX-style boost meter, which can give you the speed you need to finish a tough level goal.

It's surprising to see a boarding title that manages to impress at the same show as Tony Hawk 3. Airblade has its own look and feel to make it different, though -- its texture work is actually a fair bit more detailed than Hawk's, although Airblade's framerate hiccups more often. The final version should of course not have so many such problems, and it'll include five characters and seven levels when it ships to Europe in the fall. Like all of SCEE's stuff, it's not confirmed in any way for the States, but common sense means it should come here some time or another.

-- David Smith

Previous Information Currently in development by Criterion Studios, who developed Trickstyle for Sega's Dreamcast, Stunt Squad is a futuristic hoverboarding game that lets players partake in stunt-based gameplay in an urban city environment. The company is still being relatively quiet about releasing any details about the game at this time because of certain confidentiality agreements that they have to respect.

However, we were able to recently confirm that the game is definitely not a sequel to Trickstyle in any way or form. Furthermore, unlike we previously had suspected, it is very unlikely that the game will be published by Acclaim in either North America or Europe.

While there's not much known about this game, it looks like it has the potential to be one of the upper tier titles on PlayStation 2. While Trickstyle received mixed reviews from the gaming press, it was arguably one of the most visually impressive games on Dreamcast at the time of its release and it featured some unique gameplay ideas.

If the fine developers over at Criterion Studios are able to work that same magic on PlayStation 2 and expand on it by creating an even more innovative and enjoyable gaming experience, they might have a big winner on their hands.

IGNPS2 will surely keep you posted on this hotly anticipated title as the game's development progresses.